This is part six of Praying the Psalms on Your Worst Day. Today, Psalm 109, for the day someone has wronged you and you want them to pay.

Some prayers in the Psalms never get read aloud in church. This is one of them.

Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. Let his children continually be vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also from their desolate places.

Psalm 109:8–10 NKJV

It goes on like that for most of twenty verses. Let his name be blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered. As he loved cursing, so let it come to him.

What is that doing in the Bible?

In The Prayers That Got Angry we looked at the believer who is angry at God. This is the other kind of anger. Somebody has hurt you. A business partner lied and walked off with what you built. A family member spread something false about you, and people believed it. A man harmed someone you love and never answered for it. You are not angry at God. You are angry at them, and you want God to do something about it.

Psalm 109 belongs to a small group called the imprecatory psalms, from an old word meaning to call down a curse. They embarrass many Christians, so we skip them. But they are inspired Scripture, and they teach something we badly need to learn.

What He Did With It

For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful have opened against me; they have spoken against me with a lying tongue. They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause. In return for my love they are my accusers, but I give myself to prayer.

Psalm 109:2–4 NKJV

Before the curses come, David tells you what happened and what he did about it. He was lied about. He was attacked for no reason. He had shown these people love, and they paid him back with accusations.

Then the key line of the whole psalm. But I give myself to prayer.

The Hebrew is shorter than the English. Two words, va’ani tephillah. And I, prayer. As if David could not finish the sentence. They accuse. I pray.

That is what the imprecatory psalms are. They are prayers, and a prayer is the opposite of a plan. David took the rage he had every right to feel and spoke it to God instead of acting it out against his enemy. Everything ugly in the middle of this psalm went up to heaven. None of it went out through David’s hand.

The Man Who Would Not Lift His Hand

David’s life backs this up. For years Saul hunted him through the wilderness of Judah. One day Saul stepped into a cave near En Gedi to relieve himself, the same cave where David and his men were hiding in the dark. David’s men whispered that God had delivered his enemy into his hand. David crept up and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe, and even that bothered his conscience.

When Saul walked out, David followed him and called after him.

Let Jehovah judge between you and me, and let Jehovah avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you.

1 Samuel 24:12 NKJV

There is the whole theology of Psalm 109 in one sentence. Let Jehovah avenge me. My hand shall not.

Moses had already written down what God said about it. “Vengeance is Mine, and recompense” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Paul quotes those words to the church in Rome. “Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath” (Romans 12:19). The imprecatory psalms do exactly that. They give the wrath a place to go, and the place is God.

Everything ugly in the middle of this psalm went up to heaven. None of it went out through David’s hand.

The Accuser and the Defender

Set a wicked man over him, and let an accuser stand at his right hand.

Psalm 109:6 NKJV

The word accuser is satan, the adversary, the prosecutor in a courtroom. The psalm is set in a trial. David has been falsely accused, and he asks that his accuser get a taste of his own courtroom.

Now go to the last verse.

For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those who condemn him.

Psalm 109:31 NKJV

At the start, an accuser stands at the right hand. At the end, Jehovah stands at the right hand of the poor. The Defender takes the place where the prosecutor stood. The last word belongs to God, taking the stand for the one who was wronged.

And look at what David leans on in between. “Deal with me for Your name’s sake; because Your mercy is good, deliver me” (109:21). “Oh, save me according to Your mercy” (109:26). Chesed again. The same lovingkindness from Psalm 51, Psalm 13, and Psalm 42. A furious man still knows where to plant his feet.

Two Notes for the Careful Reader

If you read closely you will notice the pronouns shift. Verses one through five talk about them, plural. Verses six through nineteen talk about him, singular. Then verse twenty goes back to plural. For that reason some scholars believe verses six through nineteen are the curse David’s enemies were speaking against him, quoted inside his prayer, and a few modern translations mark them that way. Others read them as David’s own words. Either way, verse four stands. David took it to prayer.

Peter also quotes verse eight in Acts 1:20, when the apostles choose a man to replace Judas. Let another take his office. The early church read this psalm as fulfilled in the man who betrayed the Son of David.

Where the Christian Takes It

So can a Christian pray Psalm 109?

Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who spitefully use us (Matthew 5:44). On the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). And Peter says that when Jesus was reviled, He did not revile in return, but “committed Himself to Him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23).

That last verse is the bridge. Jesus did not stop caring about justice. He handed it to the Judge. Psalm 109 teaches you to do the same. You take every bit of the rage, the real, ugly, sleepless rage, and you give it to the only One who can judge rightly. Then, with your hands empty, you can pray for the person who hurt you.

The souls under the altar in Revelation 6:10 are still asking God how long until He avenges their blood. Wanting justice is no sin. Taking it into your own hands is.

One more thing needs saying. Handing vengeance to God does not mean staying silent when a crime has been committed. Paul calls the governing authority God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil (Romans 13:4). Report what needs reporting. Then give the rest of it to God.

The Words Under the Words

Word	Original	Strong’s	Meaning
tephillah	תְּפִלָּה	H8605	Prayer. “But I give myself to prayer,” literally “and I, prayer,” verse 4
satan	שָׂטָן	H7854	Adversary, accuser, the prosecutor at court. Verse 6
chesed	חֶסֶד	H2617	Lovingkindness, covenant loyalty. “Your mercy is good,” verse 21, and again in verse 26
naqam	נָקָם	H5359	Vengeance, rightful retribution. “Vengeance is Mine,” Deuteronomy 32:35

For the One Who Is Furious

Maybe you have never said it out loud, even to God, because you were raised to believe good Christians do not feel this way. So it sits in your chest and comes out sideways, at your wife and your kids, in the truck, at three in the morning when you replay the conversation for the hundredth time.

David shows you a better way. Say it to God. All of it. Do not clean it up first, because He already knows what is in there. Tell Him what they did and what you want done about it. Then leave it with Him, out loud and on purpose. Let Jehovah judge between me and him. My hand will not be against him.

You will probably have to do it more than once. The rage did not build up in one day, and it will not leave in one prayer.

Pray It This Week

Tell God exactly what you feel about the person who hurt you, out loud, alone. Do not edit it. Then pray 1 Samuel 24:12 over that person by name. Then pray for them, also by name, even if all you can manage is one sentence.

Jehovah, You saw what he did. You heard every lie. I gave him my love and he paid me back with this, and I am so angry I cannot sleep. I want You to deal with him. I am not going to do it myself. Judge between me and him. You stand at the right hand of the one who was wronged, so stand at mine. And because Your Son prayed for the men who crucified Him, I am praying for this man too. Do what is right with him. I leave him with You. Amen.

Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think God allowed prayers like Psalm 109 into the Bible?
2. Is it more dangerous to pray your anger to God or to keep it to yourself? Why?
3. Read 1 Samuel 24:1–15. What kept David’s hand off Saul?
4. How do Romans 12:19 and Romans 13:4 fit together when someone has wronged you?
5. Read 1 Peter 2:21–23. What did Jesus do with the wrong that was done to Him?

Going Deeper

C. S. Lewis wrote a chapter called The Cursings in his Reflections on the Psalms. He does not tidy the problem away, and he makes the uncomfortable point that a man who feels no indignation at real evil may be in worse spiritual shape than the man who cries out against it. Read that chapter alongside Psalm 35 and Psalm 137, the other two imprecatory psalms readers most often stumble over.

Next in the series, Psalm 139, where the man who prays against the wicked turns around and asks God to search him.